


Temporalgernon: Gone Fishing

by disgustiphage



Series: Temporalgernon [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-08 01:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgustiphage/pseuds/disgustiphage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rain was a scarcity out here, but when it did rain, it did so absolutely relentlessly (...) When finally the sun shone through, when it was actually relatively safe to leave, the city and surrounding desert was quite a sight to behold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temporalgernon: Gone Fishing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sidestory to my other work, Temporalgernon, that takes place sometime within the first year of the story. For a little context: through weird time shenanigans, Eggs has suddenly smartened up a bit. Quarters and, eventually, a few other willing Felts have stepped up to help him stop being quite so incompetent.

    Rain was a scarcity out here, but when it did rain, it did so absolutely relentlessly. The water was at first a joy to the city, particularly the Felt (sans perhaps Snowman), running outside to cool off and enjoy the moisture in the air, but the rain sure took its sweet time stopping. The weather escalated. The power was out more often than it was on, and floors were littered with water-filled pots and bowls and cups and the folks whom had tripped over them. Thunder boomed. Lightning made shards of the sky. Wind howled and pushed around small animals. The usually dry riverbed running across the city ran over and flooded the streets, taking detritus large and small, and vehicles and less secure buildings with it.  
    And so, fifteen people were cooped up in the house together, at the same time, for the whole week and a half.  
    When finally the sun shone through, when it was actually relatively safe to leave, the city and surrounding desert was quite a sight to behold. Green grasses sprouted up and the multitudes of colorful flowers looked like spilled paint from afar. It would all be dead or back in stasis within the month.  
    There too were animals, little amphibians and insects and other strange things that had been living or hibernating under the completely water-saturated ground. They were a brand new sight to most of the people, never seen before creatures that were suddenly overtaking the streets. They could be seen eating and laying eggs in displaced, dead fish.  
    Then the river’s waterline fell, and it flowed quickly still but not enough to sweep someone away. It was also filled with living fish. There seemed but one thing to do.  
  
    “Don’t care. Solve your own problems!” Crowbar said, “Quarts and Sticks and me are going fishing. We ain’t gone in, what, guys? 5 years? More? Fuck if I know. We’re doing this.”  
    “-But-“  
    “Fishing!”  
    “Hey, what’re you guys doing?” Eggs asked as the three strolled into the foyer, dressed very lightly and out of uniform, with backpacks overflowing with little containers and poles sticking out awkwardly. Matchsticks was dragging a cooler behind him.  
    “Didn’t you just hear?” He said, “going fishing. Now go back to… whatever the hell you were doing there.”  
    “Actually,” Quarters said, “I have a spare pole. Maybe you would like to join?”  
    “Quarts…” Crowbar said, “if you gotta bring him along, he’s _your_ responsibility.”  
    “As always.”  
    “Ohh, awesome!” Eggs said, clasping his hands together. “I always wanted to do one of these father-son kinda things! Fishing is like, _the_ father-song kinda thing.”  
    Quarters arced an eyebrow. “Father-son, hm?”  
    “Oh. Uh, I didn’t really mean it like that, I just mean I never, when I was real little- unless… well, when you found out about me and started helping, now that I think of it, you kinda… were like… that to me.”  
    Quarters lay a hand on Eggs’ shoulder and pulled him to his side. “I like the idea.”  
    Eggs grinned. “I like the idea, too.”  
    “Then change into something more comfortable. Meet us in the garage.”  
  
    Before leaving, Eggs went to see Biscuits, but found, to his slight confusion, a duplicate of his already playing with him. _Huh. I don’t actually remember making that one today,_ Eggs thought. He shrugged it off as a slip of the mind, hugged his friend and told the two to have fun.  
  
    Much of the river was lined by fishermen already, but the four Felt had an edge: Quarters, and a pair of sub machine guns that he had somehow managed to conceal. “Clear out,” he calmly said, and indeed they did. They had picked a place closer to the outskirts of town, sitting under a shady bridge where traffic was minimal, picking along the piled up rocks underneath it. The river was not too deep here, but wide and glistening and occasionally jumping with fish.

    They set up, and Quarters showed Eggs how to get started, how to hold the pole, properly tie the hook to the line which Eggs struggled with slightly with his thick fingers. Then Quarters removed a styrofoam cup from one of the backpacks. Inside was several wriggling slug-like creatures, fat and slimy and brown-black with little white stripes, and apparently appetizing to fish.  
    He demonstrated, “just take the wyrm and-” with it held tightly between his thumb and forefinger, impaled it once on the hook, then doubled it over and did it once more.  
    “Doesn’t that hurt them?” Eggs said, almost cringing. “What if I do what Uncle Crowbar’s doing? His bait’s not live.”  
    “Uncle?” Crowbar said over Matchsticks’ chuckles. “Did he put you up to calling me that?”  
    “Oops. I guess I said that outloud.”  
    “He’s gonna be fly fishing,” Matchsticks said. “And it’s a bit trickier. Stick to the bait for now, kid.”  
    Quarters handed Eggs another wyrm. “Regarding whether or not this hurts, they definitely do not care for it, but they probably cannot feel pain, _per se_. Different brain, nervous system… and pain can be subjective, anyway.”  
    Little rocks tumbled down into the water, and they heard someone picking their way down the slope. They looked up, and half of the Midnight Crew— Hearts Boxcars, burdened with gear, and Clubs Deuce— were partway down the slope when they themselves noticed the Felt sitting there. Eggs clenched the rocks around him tightly enough to hurt, just at the sight of Boxcars standing above them. The opposing gangsters looked each other down a good long minute, when Deuce finally broke the ice with: “We’re gonna catch sooo much more fish than you! Right Boxy?”  
    “…Right, kiddo.”  
    Thus, an uneasy truce was formed, at least while the two groups had fishing poles in their hands. They sat a small distance from each other, with Crowbar wading out a bit. Eggs not only kept his distance from Boxcars, but made sure Crowbar and Matchsticks and Quarters always stood between them.  
    Though the tension eased up, just slightly, enough to converse a bit.  
    “Nah, Slick don’t like no outdoor sports,” Boxcars said, “well, ‘cept huntin’. People. With knives. But you folks know that already pretty good, huh? Haha… ha… ha… Nevermind.”  
    “It’s my first time fishin’!” Deuce said with a childlike excitement. “DD didn’t wanna come ‘cause of his suits or somethin’, but he bought all this stuff for me. So it’s kinda like he’s here with me, right?”  
    “Not really, no but… yeah, sure, why not.”  
    “It’s my first, too,” Eggs said uneasily. He and Crowbar had been struggling with a massive tangle in their lines for the past couple minutes. “Don’t really got the hang of it just yet.”  
    The water-filled cooler and buckets behind them slowly but surely began to fill out with fish as the veterans began getting back into their groove. When Eggs finally seemed to attract one himself, he called out excitedly, “I’m pretty sure it’s not another snag!”  
    Quarters maneuvered behind him to guide him, when he saw the tip of the rod bouncing just so. “Alright, it looks like you have a few nibbles.” He showed him the motion again, snapping the rod back to actually hook the fish’s mouth. Eggs followed it, and this time, he had it. “Remember to give a little slack, so not to break the line-“  
    “-We ain’t got infinite amounts of fishing line,” Crowbar warned.  
    “I know! I said I was sorry already,” Eggs said, reeling slowly. Deuce had come right up to him to watch. The pole arced hard. Eggs struggled with it, dislodging a few rocks as he tried to find better footing. He gave it one huge jerk, and Trace came flying out of the water, sputtering and cursing. Deuce backed away. “Whoa!”  
    Boxcars rubbed his hands together. “Atta boy! Now let’s fry ‘em up.”  
    “Ohh. Sorry Trace,” Eggs laughed. Trace, in just shorts, looked very strange with the fins sprouting from his back and the shark-like tail, usually kept hidden and unnoticed under long clothing and coattails. He wedged the hook out of his toothy mouth, not quite accepting the apology. He got up, brushed off dirt clinging to his wet body as well as he could, and strolled over to grab a handfull, and bite, of squirming bait.  
    “Yeah well I’m takin’ some of this,” Trace said with a full mouth. He returned to the water and dived back into the deeper part of the river.  
    “You’re paying me back for that!” Matchsticks called after him.  
    “You didn ‘t pay for that, we picked the damn things off the street,” Crowbar commented.  
    “He doesn’t have to know that.”  
    Quarters shrugged. He patted Eggs’ shoulder. “Good job, at any rate.” He smiled in his subtle way. Light-heartedly, he said, “maybe you really are my son. You seem to be around the right age.”  
    “Quarts,” Matchsticks said, “how can he be your son if you’re… y’know.”  
    Quarters narrowed his eyes. “That somehow makes it physically impossible, now? I have… when I was younger, well….”  
    Eggs looked at Quarters quizzically. “If you’re what? Aw, nevermind, it doesn’t matter. Even if we don’t look nothin’ alike. Dad.”  
    Boxcars laughed. “You people are _goddamn weird_.”


End file.
